Police stress and well‐being: Integrating personality, coping and daily work experiences

Abstract

What are the personal and work related factors which contribute to a police officer's psychological well‐being? This question was examined within a Perceived Quality of Life (PQOL) framework that integrates personality, coping processes and a police officer's positive (beneficial to well‐being) and negative (harmful to well‐being) work experiences. Structural equation analyses were conducted on questionnaire data obtained from 527 police officers during two related studies. Two structural equation models showed that positive and negative work experiences independently contributed to an officer's PQOL, and that organizational rather than operational experiences were more important. A third model supported these findings, but showed that the personality dimensions of neuroticism and extraversion were the strongest predictors of an officer's PQOL. It was also shown that problem‐focused coping resulted in positive work experiences, whereas emotion‐focused coping contributed to negative work experiences. Comparisons with other community and occupational groups suggested that police reported relatively favourably levels of psychological well‐being. Collectively, these results indicate that policing is not highly stressful, and demonstrate the need for a systemic view in order to understand police officers' psychological responses to their work.